13
HEAVY METAL
Vulpter was the first target for the Corellian Treaty's attempt to seize the initiative in the Coreward Front. As one of the FO's key coreward industrial centers, Vulpter could not be allowed to operate freely. As commerce raids and Corellian Treaty marines cut Vulpter off from external support and in-system assets, the stage was set to begin planetary invasion operations. Wraith Squadron operatives infiltrated the planet's main orbital defense station, assassinating its bridge command crew and the Knight of Ren, Kanter Rask. As Rask fell to Ben Skywalker's blade, Commander Voort SaBinring turned the station's guns on Vulpter's navy and minor defense platforms. Other Corellian specialist teams built on the Wraith model carried out similar operations on several other Vulptereen orbital assets. By the time Vulptereen Planetary Command cut through the confusion, Corellian and Duros naval assets had already jumped into the system guns blazing.
Surprised, inexperienced, and caught between two fleets' guns and an enemy-held space station, Vulpter's naval defenders crumbled. Valin Horn and VFA-202 shot down FOSF's Duzakh Squadron at the cost of four starfighters, while the aces of Rogue Squadron destroyed the FOSF's Irkalla Squadron with three starfighters lost. Torpedo strikes from Y-wing squadrons and CT destroyers crippled the Vulptereen flagship Benoga along with her escorts, and sent debris hurtling towards the planet's famous Orbital Advertisement Ring. With its most potent assets lost, the Vulptereen Navy crumbled and scattered.
Under the command of Corellian General Bannon and Duros General Raksi, Corellia's 1st Army Group and Duro's 3rd Army Group began planetfall operations. First into the fight were orbital drop specialist units like the Corellian 305th Marine Division, Clan Ordo 15th Cluster, and Duros 22nd Spaceborne Division, whose main jobs were to clear landing zones, disable surface-to-orbit defenses, sabotage key infrastructure, and wreak havoc behind enemy lines. The invasion's primary targets were the metropolitan areas around Hpaq and Charbi, which were home to most of Vulpter's on-world industry and government.
HPAQ
Hpaq, the primary Corellian objective, was a heavily defended but geographically vulnerable megalopolis, bordered by open plains and light forests. Thanks to the sabotage of the 305th Marines, Bannon's main force was able to land relatively unmolested, losing few transports during planetfall. Aggressive, boisterous, and vulgar, Bannon was in many ways the opposite number to the Empire's cautious Vauban. Bannon's armored divisions and mechanized infantry landed just outside of Hpaq's aerial defense envelope and rolled towards the city at full speed under cover of self-propelled artillery and Endeavor's carrier wing. The FO's General Von Barka mounted a clumsy first response, sending his walkers to defend Hpaq's outskirts while his anti-tank and anti-air assets were still preparing to deploy. While walkers and infantry alone might have been enough to kick over poorly equipped Resistance outposts, they proved woefully insufficient against a conventional combined-arms attack. As the FO defenders retreated inward, they left dozens of legged walker hulks smoldering in the outer slag wastes.
As Corellian forces moved further into the Hpaq metropolitan hive, conditions became much more claustrophobic. IEDs, mines, booby-trapped buildings, and rooftop ATGM teams were all very real threats to Corellian heavy armor. While Bannon did have the option to simply level the city with ordnance and roll forward, he and CT high command considered that a last resort. The Corellian Treaty wanted the planet and its industry captured as intact as possible, so the Corellian 1st Army Group would have to dig the enemy out the slow way. The relative lack of civilians, caused by pre-invasion propaganda messages to evacuate, was a small consolation. Dust, smoke, and interference from dense urban conditions also interfered with communications, though the Corellian military's emphasis on squad-level initiative and autonomy allowed troops to operate uninterrupted, albeit in a somewhat more disorganized fashion than was optimal.
In Hpaq's streets, dismounted infantry pushed ahead of the armor, fighting room by room, rooftop by rooftop to clear out enemy ambushes. Even with orders in place to preserve as much of the city as possible, Corellian troops were still forced to break out the big guns to clear the way. Demo charges, tanks, rockets, and grenades were used to blast through walls and clear enemy-occupied rooms. Pinpoint bombardments from artillery and CAS leveled many of the buildings that the FO had turned into strongpoints. Flamethrowers, as always, proved horrifyingly effective in taking out entrenched infantry. In many cases, self-propelled AA guns were brought in to engage enemy-occupied buildings when the tanks' gun elevation proved insufficient.
The Battle of Hpaq was also a reminder of the effectiveness of lightsabers in urban warfare. Knights of Ren used their blades to mouse-hole walls in the same fashion as troops with conventional explosives, scything through unsuspecting Corellian marines in a series of counter-attacks and ambushes. The Knights of Ren at Hpaq were only stopped in their tracks by the arrival of Ben Skywalker, who turned those same tactics back on them. While the Knights of Ren possessed the weaponry and Force talents to counter regular infantry, their poor discipline and lack of training in either stealth or infantry tactics put them lower on the food chain than a properly schooled Jedi Knight, especially one backed up by cybernetic enhancements and a coordinated team of commandos. These were not Kylo Ren's elites, but the expendable neophytes who had joined the Knights after the war's outbreak. With Wraith Squadron's support, Skywalker was able to isolate several of the Knights and add their heads to his tally. FO General Von Barka attempted to counter the Jedi threat by deploying his personal Sith Trooper life company to join the Knights of Ren, but achieved little success as Corellian forces refined their tactics. Corellian forces baited the Knights' headhunter teams with false retreats, luring them into the sights of carefully prepared ambush teams. Skywalker himself continued to win duel after duel, slaying or severely wounding seven FO champions by the campaign's end.
The task of taking Hpaq's southern and western industrial districts fell to the veteran armored and marine divisions of the Corellian 3rd Army. As the elite backbone of the 1st Army Group, these divisions were assigned the most important sector of the Hpaq war zone. Progress was slow but steady, with marine infantry meticulously sweeping city blocks to support the armored advance into the city's rail yards and manufactoria. Unit commanders made good use of the naval liaisons Bannon had assigned to their forces, calling in well-timed air and orbital strikes to soften Vulptereen positions before the tanks rolled over them. Experienced FO reinforcements supported by Knights of Ren and Sith forces put up a tough fight, but the Corellians in this sector had the advantage in firepower, air superiority, and coordination. The 3rd Army achieved its primary objectives six weeks after planetfall.
Hpaq's northern hab districts were the objective of the Corellian 1st Army, made up of a mix of veteran and green divisions. Initial progress was swift as the marines pushed into the outer hab complexes, only to be halted when the inexperienced troops of II Corps were routed by a series of ambushes and counter-attacks by FO armor. This enemy counter-push was only barely halted by a hasty defense mounted by II Corps' rear-echelon divisions, who used carefully laid minefields and time-on-target artillery barrages to pin the FO and Vulptereen troops in place long enough for I and III Corps tanks to swing around and flank the enemy. Heads rolled in the face of II Corps' near-catastrophic failure, with Bannon sacking dozens of senior officers as I and III Corps filled in the gap. Despite this setback, Corellian forces achieved their primary objectives eight weeks after planetfall.
Hpaq's eastern commercial and administrative districts were assigned to the green Corellian 2nd Army. Believing this sector to be lightly defended, Bannon saw east Hpaq as a place to forge veterans out of the 2nd Army. The poorly equipped Vulptereen auxiliaries stationed in this sector initially folded quickly, unwilling to die for their FO allies, but the arrival of decraniated and combat droid reinforcements bolstered their resolve. The battle for east Hpaq unexpectedly devolved into a meat grinder as the Corellian 2nd Army dug into its recently captured positions to weather the massed FO hordes. To its credit, the 2nd Army largely held its ground, despite horrendous losses. Ammunition and fuel supplies ran low in the face of thousands upon thousands of decraniated slaves and battle droids. On several occasions, troops on the verge of being overwhelmed called artillery and aerial bombardments on their own positions to drive back wave after wave of the enemy's cannon fodder. While costly, the 2nd Army survived and accomplished its primary objectives eight and a half weeks after planetfall, albeit at the cost of approximately 65% of its strength.
By the end of the ninth week, the Vulptereen government of Hpaq had surrendered unconditionally to Corellian forces. The remaining FO forces under General Von Barka refused to surrender, taking up positions in the city's Judicial Spire Complex where they held out for three more weeks, until food and water supplies ran short. They sallied forth and mounted a final charge in week 12 of the invasion, only to be cut down by the Corellian armies' massed fire, ending the Battle of Hpaq.
CHARBI
At Charbi, Duros forces had a harder fight. A society based on space colonies, the Duros had historically not given much priority to heavy land-based firepower like main battle tanks or artillery. In the confines of a space station, heavy ordnance was rarely considered useful on account of its tendency to puncture hulls. Even thermal detonators, demolition charges, and mouse-holing tactics were largely considered emergency measures. Duros doctrine relied heavily on a small but elite marine corps with closely coordinated naval support, but the dust kicked up by large-scale warfare and the difficulty of getting good comm signals in densely packed urban areas dampened the effectiveness of such orbital support. Gunnery crews in orbit had difficulty finding good targeting solutions or maintaining comms with units on the ground. Eventually, General Raksi, Valin Horn, and Duros Admiral Sevval improvised a solution by exploiting data links to SWACS and CAS craft flying over the battlefield, bouncing comms from Duros ground forces to the fleet in orbit. While poor atmospheric conditions continued to be an accuracy malus for orbital artillery, this improvised solution allowed Duros marine units to restore some use of the turbolaser support which made up such a crucial part of their ground combat doctrine.
Unlike the Corellian approach of hitting the city from all angles, the Duros surrounded Charbi and advanced into the city purely from the south in a wide front. Duro's 7th Army took up the western flank, its mechanized divisions fighting through Charbi's agri-dome arcologies. The Duros 8th Army took the center, advancing up the largest highways to hit the commercial and governmental heart of the Charbi megalopolis. Advancing through the easy, the Duros 9th Army took on the city's industrial zones and space elevator.
Much like the Corellian forces, the Duros advance was an urban grind characterized by ambushes, traps, fierce close combat, and careful demolition. The western arcologies went up in smoke as the Duros called in flamer teams and incendiary bombardments to burn concealed enemy troops out of hastily dug tunnels and spider holes. In the center, the 8th Army's infantry took severe casualties as the FO's new Sith Trooper elites clashed with Duros Marines in the cramped confines of the Commercia Spires. The Duros who survived these encounters quickly learned to abandon the cautious spacer mentality on the ground, calling for more liberal application of lethal explosives, CAS, and wall-piercing munitions to soften up enemy-occupied rooms and structures. In a post-Vulpter interview, Valin Horn stated that he and his squadron ran sorties seemingly nonstop to assist the Duros advance. "Enemy resistance was so heavy that we were on call pretty much constantly. There was always something to bomb or torp or gun down. Some days, it felt like the only chances we had to sleep were during our reload-and-refuel periods back at base."
Fighting in Charbi was hardest around the central Plutocrat's Rise and the space elevator, where the FO had concentrated its anti-air defenses and heavy armor. These proved difficult to dislodge, and the volume of anti-air fire was such that SEAD runs by fighter craft were rendered impossible. The infantry would have to dig the enemy out the hard way, with flamers and blasters and bayonets. Entire divisions of the 8th Army were rendered combat-ineffective from the losses they suffered advancing up the Rise, but on the first day of the eighth week, the Executive Tower fell, demolished at last by the 122nd Duros Marine Division. Two days later, the 95th and 471st Duros Marine Divisions entered the space elevator complex, finding only token resistance as the last FO forces retreated in good order deeper inwards. Suspicious at the enemy's activity, General Raksi ordered the marines to hold position and await the arrival of combat engineer units. Unfortunately for the Duros, the order came too late. As the 95th and 471st continued their work, explosives rigged up throughout the space elevator complex detonated, collapsing the space elevator right on top of the 9th Army. The 95th and 471st were annihilated, along with 70% of the 9th Army's frontline combat units. General Raksi ordered the reserve units of the 10th Army to fill in the gap and continue the 9th Army's push, but by then, the battle was effectively over. The last major pocket of FO resistance in the 9th Army's area of operations had spent itself on the trap. The eighth week concluded with the unconditional surrender of Charbi's Vulptereen government.
AWAKEN, MY MASTERS
'Are we really doing this again?' - the average Jedi's reaction to the return of the Sith
The Vulpter Campaign marked the Corellian Treaty's first recorded sighting of the FO's so-called "Sith Troopers." Disciplined, fanatical, and highly trained, such troops were a clear step above the generic rank-and-file stormtroopers. Post-battle autopsies revealed that many of these Sith Troopers did, in fact, possess some degree of True Sith DNA. Traces of carbonite residue were also present in the bloodstreams of many such troopers. The origins of these soldiers would remain a mystery until after the war, when First Order records were released to the public.
In truth, the FO's Sith Troopers were the very same carbonite-frozen Sith Army discovered by the Nightsister Silri (a former associate of the late Tyber Zann and Urai Fenn) some time after Endor. Shortly after the army's discovery, Silri was assassinated by Galactic Imperial agents who had tracked her since her discovery of the holocron containing the Sith Army's location. The still-frozen Sith Army was extracted and relocated to the Unknown Regions along with other critical assets during Operation Cinder as part of the First Order's formation.
The Sith Army's forces did not consist solely of Sith Trooper infantry. Vehicle crews, naval officers, pilots, and Force users numbered among its ranks as well, marked on modern battlefields by red cloth detailing or Sith iconography on their uniforms. Due to their experience and skill, most high-ranking Sith Army personnel were spread out among the FO's forces as officers or small groups of elite warriors. Those with sufficient proficiency in the Force were inducted into the Knights of Ren as advisers, warriors, and alchemists.
STATE OF THE WAR
The destruction of two FO armies on Vulpter was a major blow to Coreward FO operations, but few historians would consider it a decisive turning point in the Coreward War. Vulpter was just one of multiple industrial centers to consider, and the FO naval losses were negligible compared to those of the native Vulptereen fleet. Nevertheless, this victory emboldened CT strategists, pushing them to lay down the plans for further offensive operations down the road. And while the FO would make retaliatory strikes down the Corellian Run and its tributaries, the loss at Vulpter combined with the loss at Bescane and the destruction of distant Starkiller Base showed the rest of the galaxy that the FO could be beaten. The FO's vassals were shaken, and the fires of planetary rebellions stirred as the FO's image of invulnerability was forever shattered. Vulpter itself would go on to contribute its considerable manufacturing capacity to the Corellian Treaty logistical network, supplying vast quantities of firearms, armored vehicles, ammunition, and droids to the growing CT war machine.